


Precipice

by justalittlegreen, PrairieDawn



Series: Ottumwaverse [2]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Autistic Original Characters, Autistic Radar O'reilly, Childbirth, Clairvoyance, Conversion Therapy (mention only), F/M, Family Drama, Many Original Characters - Freeform, Medical Jargon, Near Death, Period Atypical PArenting, Period Typical Attitudes toward breastfeeding, Period Typical Homophobia, Period Typical Parenting, Sexual Situations, Telepathy, Truancy, childbirth complications
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 06:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18114902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justalittlegreen/pseuds/justalittlegreen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: Walter O'Reilly takes his wife to the hospital to deliver their seventh child, because something is very wrong this time.





	1. In Which Walter Does Not Stay in the Waiting Room

**Author's Note:**

> There is a brief mention of a child being spanked, not by a main character. So you know.

 

“Walter. What aren’t you telling me?”

“You’ll like the hospital,” he said.  “It’s clean and the nurses will wait on you hand and foot.  You won’t be tempted to get up and cook for the kids in a day.”

Joanie was silent, her lips closed against a contraction.  Walter concentrated on driving at a reasonable speed, tried to still the image of her holding their baby clattered against the irreconcilable, visceral terror and screaming blankness of her absence.

She stared at him.  “What’s going on, Walter?  You’re scaring me.”

There was nothing he could do to keep from scaring her.  They’d been married far too long to keep secrets.  She rode his premonitions as surely as he rode her contractions.  He kept his eyes on the road.  An accident at this moment would be unthinkable.  “I don’t know, Joanie.  Something’s not right, so we need to go to the hospital.”

“Can’t Addie handle it, whatever it is?”

“No.”

And she was quiet, if nervous in the long space between contractions that were still several minutes apart.  How many they couldn’t tell.  A pocket watch was an extravagance Walter had never felt the need for, not when six children needed to be outfitted with winter boots and warm coats.  They had enough time to get there.

They pulled into the parking lot of the Ottumwa hospital.  Walter tried out the words he’d say to the nurses, feeling his way forward like he was testing uncertain ground in the dark.  If he said he thought there was something wrong, would they be more vigilant, or would they laugh it off and keep even less watch on Joanie than they would if he said nothing?  Like the Magic 8 Ball Hawkeye had brought him a few summers ago, his fickle foresight told him to ask again later.

Joanie’s next contraction rose up just as they walked into the building.  Walter took her arm to steady her and she leaned into him, the pain peaking above the worst of life’s ordinary aches for the first time that day, so that she sucked in a breath beside him and hunched a little until it faded.  If the other babies were any indication, her pains would be coming quicker now.  He led her to the front desk.  She signed her own name and filled out the papers until the next pain hit, then a brusque nurse pulled the papers from her hands, shoved them at Walter and whisked Joanie through the double doors he was not allowed to pass through.

He had forgotten about that part.  Addie hadn’t ever let him in for the actual births of the other children, insisting on keeping childbirth a women only event as though it were some ancient and sacred feminine rite.  But she had let him stay through most of her labors, walking with her, holding her hand, putting cool cloths on her forehead, and easing her suffering a little with the family magic.  <i>Joanie?</i>

 

<i>Walt, they want to give me medicine to make me sleepy and forgetful.  They say it helps with the pains.</i>

<i>What do you want?</i>

<i>I don’t want to be out of my head when I have this baby.  I want to go home, Walter.</i>

He considered running in after, to take her home.  She was so scared, and the nurses were not listening to her.  But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the darkness loomed suddenly closer, threatening to swallow them both, and he firmed his resolve.  <i>I’m sorry, Joanie.</i>

<i>We will have words about this.</i>  The next contraction swallowed her anger, and by the time it faded, the connection slipped away from him, became blank, muzzy static.  Joanie was apparently too sleepy to put in the effort to hold up her end.

His knees gave out and he fell into a chair, barking the side of his hip on the armrest.   She was in good hands, he told himself.  It was going to be okay.  It might yet be okay.  Radar counted the floor tiles, then the ceiling tiles, then a softer, sweeter sort of a nurse bent down to his level.  “Sir, would you like me to take you to the waiting room for expectant fathers?”

He looked up and made himself smile but instead of answering, he just levered himself out of the chair and followed where she led.

He wasn’t alone in the room.  A tall, thin man in a suit paced back and forth, crumpling what looked like an expensive hat between his hands.  Another, no more than a boy, with blond waves and scattered freckles perched on the end of his seat, eyes fixed on the door that led into the bowels of the hospital.

It smelled like the 4077th.  Cleaner, without the undertones of tracked in mud, damp lumber and canvas, and the mildew they could never really get rid of in the rainy season, but the antiseptic tang was familiar and more comforting than he thought it would be.  The second hand on the big, white clock crawled.

The tall, pacing man was collected by smiling nurses declaring, “It’s a boy!” and led around a corner.

The blond kid noticed Walter for the first time it seemed.  “You hoping for a boy or a girl?”

“We’re having a girl,” Walter replied absently.  “This your first?”

“Uh huh!”  Pride touched his voice.  “I married Patty a year ago next Tuesday.  You seem awful sure.”

“This will be our seventh.”  And he hadn’t been wrong yet.

“Hoping for a boy to name for my Pop.  Just wish he were still here to meet him.”

“You and me both,” Walter said, though he barely knew his own Pa.  His Ma lived long enough to meet Joanie and John, but passed on before the rest of the children came along.  And that he regretted, for the girls’ sakes more than anything. 

And then the bottom dropped out of his mind, quick and sudden so he was blinded by it.  He couldn’t remember how to breathe.  He didn’t even see her dead, just felt her gone and with her all the ways forward stopped.  Tangled.  And there was nothing past them to see.  He felt like he was standing on the edge of a precipice, leaning over it into a whirling nothing the unpurple color of knuckles pressed against closed eyes.  But not yet.  Not yet. She was still there, still hanging on and he had to <i>get</i> to her to find her find a way through. There had to be a way through and out to the other side.

He stumbled forward, vision clearing in the middle but still bruise dark around the edges.  He threw himself at the door.  Locked.  And again.  The door broke, as did something in his shoulder, a faint pop and a pain he barely noticed.  Arms held him tight.  People were yelling and he wrenched himself free and ran, dodging bodies and arms that tried to stop him, following a thread to where Joanie would be, where Joanie was, afraid and alone—not alone but needing him and he wasn’t there for her--<i>Walt!</i> sharp and bright and aware and he burst into the room where she was.  There was so much blood.  She reached for him, a line running into her arm bright with the blood they were squeezing into her body (couldn’t do that with the glass jars they had in Korea), but he couldn’t get around two nurses, a doctor and an orderly twice his size who had just seen him and was moving toward him.

If Walter hit him they’d drag him away for sure.   Joanie’s eyes rolled back in her head and she got the look they used to get in Korea when they were starting to die.  He was suddenly heavy, numb limbed, but he let the feeling carry him down and ducked under the orderly’s arms, moving on muscle memory, scooting around and between the doctor—two doctors now—and nurses without disturbing their movements.  There was a bit of space up by the head of the bed on the far side of the room and he squeezed in there, made himself small and not too in the way and felt around for Joan, who was never NOT there, not even when she was sleeping.  Until now.  There was no open channel, no static on the line.  He held her by the shoulder, skin smooth and soft and just a little too cool under the thin gown she wore.  There.  Faint, so faint it might be imagination but he’d take it.  <i>Joanie you stay with me</i> he insisted, prayed, perhaps, then just, “Stay,” both spoken and echoing through him and he hoped, through her but she didn’t respond.

Arms hooked around him, tried to drag him away and he shouted, “No!  I have to stay with her, Please!” and the nurse said, “She’s crashing, leave him and get the defibrillator paddles!”

Walter took advantage of the orderly letting go of him to rush back to Joanie’s side, to hold her by the shoulder with one hand and thread the other through her tangled hair.  “Wait, that’s good,” the nurse said.  “Rhythm’s improving.  Keep pushing A positive as fast as you can get it in and get her open now before we lose them both.”

“He can’t be in here!”

Arms reached around him again, tucked his hands behind his back.  His right hand came away with several strands of her hair still twisted through his fingers.  “She’s heading back into V-fib again!”

Somewhere in the fog he was shouting "Let me help! I know how to help!" 

“Let him go, now!”  It was that same nurse.

His arms were freed.  He slid back into place, laid his hands on her again like one of those faith healers on the TV, shoulder and forehead, thumb slipping down to the soft spot at her temple, the one he liked to kiss.

“That’s got it,” someone else said, and “Work fast,” and the nurse was right beside him, felt more than seen, a sort of ghosting behind him, holding a mask to Joanie’s face.

The nurse curled fingers under Walt’s chin to turn his head so he faced her.  Wisps of blonde hair peeked out from under her cap.  She looked Walt straight in the eye and said "You stay as long as you do EXACTLY what I tell you, understand? One false move and you risk hurting her, and I'm NOT having that."  The voice was familiar--not actually familiar, but that tone.  Confident. Crisp. Decisive. More than a little shrill.

Then the nurse was saying "We're taking her to surgery.”  He didn’t see or hear much after that, though he swore there were arms around him again, but this time holding him in place, walking him alongside the gurney.  He could swear someone called for a corpsman.

“I’m cutting now.  We’re not going to save her.  At least let’s try for the baby.”

Somewhere, Hawkeye was shouting, "Damnit, Radar, out of my way! I need more suction!"

And BJ was saying "We're losing her Hawk, let's go faster."

And Potter called "You need some help over there?"

And Hawkeye shouted "I'm doing everything I can!"

"...Do you hear me, Mr. O'Reilly? We're going to do everything we can."  He was still locked in position at the head of a bed that wasn't there anymore.  There was blood on the floor and soaked towels.

"Mr. O'Reilly?"

He'd lost Joanie. For the first time in his life, the only things in his head were memories.  The nurse’s face faded from his vision.  The next thing he knew, he was on a stretcher and someone was shining a penlight in his eyes. "Can you hear me, Mr. O'Reilly?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I can hear you. Please, can you tell me where my wife is?"  He tried to sit up but that blonde nurse planted a hand on his chest.  She was stronger than she looked.

"She's still in surgery. You fainted about twenty minutes ago. Has that ever happened before?"

Walt nodded because it was easier than remembering to lie.  "I want to see her."  He closed his eyes against nausea.

"I know you do,” the doctor who was not Hawkeye said, “but we have to let the doctors do their work, son." He opened his eyes again. The doctor was close to twice his age. Kind eyes, gray at the temples. "I know it's frightening, but we have the very best of us working on her."

Walter closed his eyes again.  He couldn’t feel Joan as such, but the space where she lived was back, blunted and not responding, but he remembered holding their daughter, going home with her and Joanie and they weren’t true memories yet but they weren’t just wishful thinking either.  He was trying to find words when the door burst open, and a tired-looking doctor in bloody scrubs came in smiling.

"She's okay. She's going to be okay." 

"But I can't find her,” Walter said.

"Well, she's in the recovery room,” the doctor said, slow and clear like he was used to talking to people who weren’t all the way back from a dead faint.

"You mean Post-Op?"

The doctor gave him a funny smile. "Yes, that's what I mean. You work in a hospital?"

"Sorta. Long time ago.  When can I see her?"

"When she wakes up. Could be a few hours."

"Will someone be checking her vitals?"

The doctor nodded.  "Every fifteen minutes is how we do it until they're out of critical."

The blonde nurse helped him to sit, and this time he didn’t pass out again.  He poked at the absent place where Joanie ought to be.  “You’re sure Joanie’s okay?”

“She’s doing fine.”

“Is there—is there a chance she might be brain damaged?  Like she might never wake up?”

The doctor’s face grew solemn.  “There’s always that chance when there’s this much blood loss.  But her reflexes look good.  In my opinion, she has a very good chance at recovery.”

He’d have to take the doctor’s word for it for now.  Maybe it was just the anesthesia.

The blonde nurse helped him to sit, then pivoted him off the bed he was lying on and into a wheelchair.  "Do you want to see your daughter, Mr. O'Reilly?"

Walter looked over his shoulder at the door the surgeon had just come through.  "Uh, yeah. Yeah, let's go see her.”

The blonde nurse he kept thinking of as Margaret, even though they didn’t look alike aside from the hair, wheeled him to the elevator and down to the nursery window.  Another nurse, inside the room in which four babies lay peacefully wrapped up like pigs in a blanket, held Betsy up to the window, and Radar stood up to press his fingers against the glass, a smile finding him despite the gnawing in his chest.  A little part of him knew sometimes when they were hurt really bad, the body kept going but there was no one there.  And until Joanie woke up they wouldn't know for sure.  He wouldn't know.  He sat back down, exhausted by the little effort of standing.

The nurse he kept calling Margaret in his head slipped inside to have a word with the one in the nursery.   She returned, then wheeled Walter in. "D'you want to hold her?"  He nodded, still feeling numb and stupid, and then she was in his arms, and it was just like all the others, only different. Different because it wasn’t Joan handing her over, and Joan's chin wasn't on his shoulder, but Elizabeth May was perfect and beautiful and of all the kids, she'd got Joan's nose.

There was a part of him that worried for a minute. What if it wasn't the same? What if he blamed her?  The first thing he said to all the other kids was hello. Or welcome or something like that.  To Betsy, he said, “It wasn't your fault, sweetheart.”

He couldn't imagine a baby carrying that around. No, if this was anyone's fault, it was his.  They knew - after the first three, they figured out how to sense it, when she'd take.  It was how they got the break between Hank and the twins.  He remembered the night perfectly. How he'd joked, “Let's make it an even seven.”

 She’d replied, “You're going to be the death of me,” even as she was unbuttoning his shirt.

"Mr. O'Reilly, why don't you give her back to me now? I've got her." The baby was crying, red and loud. He clutched her, and the nurse is looked worried as the big kindly doctor put a hand on his shoulder and said "Let's get you up to where you can wait in peace."

 


	2. Hard Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joanie awakens in the hospital, and Walter has to leave her there to take care of the farm and children.

They gave him an aspirin for the pounding headache he hadn’t even noticed until he was sure Joanie was back with him. He fell asleep in a chair and woke a couple of hours later with a crick in his neck and an empty stomach. Someone had brought him a dinner tray while he was sleeping and he wolfed it down, not caring that the milk was warm and the meatloaf was cold.

They let him sit with Joanie for a few minutes when she woke. She squeezed his hand, opened her eyes, and quirked her lips in a barely there smile. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a faint, dry crackle emerged, and she coughed. The nurse, the blonde one who had stuck up for him before, gave her a sip of water. “We had to put a tube down your throat to help you breathe,” the nurse told her.

She nodded. _Is Betsy—did Betsy make it?_

“Betsy’s fine,” Walter assured her. “She’s beautiful. Has your nose.”

_Poor thing. Can I see her?_

“Can she see the baby?” Walter asked the nurse.

“Not right now. Tomorrow. If she’s up to it.”

_But I have to feed her! How am I going to feed her?_

Walter bit his lip. “She’s nursed all of the other babies. She wants to know how, I mean, she probably wants to know.”

The blonde nurse shook her head and squeezed her shoulder gently. “Oh, honey, we already gave you a shot to dry up your milk. Now you can give the baby nice, modern, sanitary formula.”

Tears filled Joanie’s eyes, poured out the corners, down the sides of her face and over her ears. Walter dabbed at them and kissed her forehead. _I’m just happy I get to take both of you home._  
She nodded, choking back a sob. 

_It’s okay to cry if you need to, love._

_Can I see the baby?_

For a moment, Walter thought she was confused and had forgotten what the nurse said. Then he nodded. _I’ll give it a go._

He looked at the nurse. “I’m going to kiss my wife. If you don’t mind.” He put on a tone of voice that said he really didn’t care if she minded.

She gave them a self-indulgent smile and he leaned in, laced his fingers through her hair, thumbs stroking soft at the temples, and kissed her, soft and light, not deeply, afraid to steal the breath from her, then leaned his forehead against hers and tried to remember just exactly what Betsy looked like. Joanie giggled, which turned into another cough and he pulled away to get the water from the nightstand. _She does have my nose. Poor baby._

Radar snorted. He helped her sip water.

“She needs her rest,” the nurse said.

_Go home, Walt. The kids need you._

_Yes, dear._ He gave her another kiss, just a peck, and smoothed her hair one more time before leaving her in the hospital.

*

He hoped the kids had been all right with Mrs. Smitt. It was late when he finally got in from the evening chores. John had done a lot, he could see, but a few things he just wasn’t strong enough yet to do on his own. He slipped into the kitchen from the mud room in sock feet and tiptoed past John where he sat at the kitchen table, head pillowed on his arms. A folded note lay under his fingers.

Anna was not all right. Walter slid the note out from under John’s hand and hurried into the sitting room. Anna was curled up on the couch, staring at the crystals decorating the bottom of the lampshade, arms wrapped around little Ernie. “Anna? You okay there?”

"Yeah, Dad, I'm fine," she lied.

“Mom’s okay. So’s the baby.”

“I know.” Her voice was flat. Distant. Her eyes stayed locked on the lampshade. He sat down beside her to put his arms around her. She stiffened. “She died.”  
“Only for a little while.” He reached with the arm not wrapped around Anna’s shoulders to stroke Ernie’s hair. “Was Ernie okay?”

She turned in his arms to face him, still stiff and scowling. “Of course he wasn't.” The bite was back in her voice.

“What'd he do?”

“You mean before or after he smashed half the dinner plates? Or before or after Mrs. Smitt spanked him? Or before or after he started screaming and didn't stop for a solid hour and I couldn't do anything to make him stop?” Her voice rose on every question, ending near a shout. Ernie lay still and quiet in her arms through the whole tirade.

“Oh honey, I'm so sorry,” he said, uselessly.

“He wasn't okay.” She attacked her tearing eyes with the heel of her hand. “He wasn't okay and nobody understood. Hank just hid and John took the twins out to the barn and it was me and Mrs. Smitt and - and - ERNIE and I couldn't do anything. And it got so dark and so cold and I couldn't breathe and Mrs. Smitt I think she got scared because she left.” She heaved a deep breath. “She LEFT me.”

She was sobbing then, and twelve was just enough not-too-big for him to pull her onto his lap, maybe for the last time. Anna turned away from him long enough to make sure Ernie didn’t slip onto the floor, then buried her face in his shirt. Something about her didn’t feel quite right, beyond the grief spending itself in tears all over his shirt. He reached for the pull on the lamp, turned it on so its yellow light bathed the children, and unfolded the note.

> **Gave Ernest 200 mg phenobarbital IM for seizure at 7:15 p.m. Gave Anna 2 mg diazepam at 7:20 p.m. for anxiety. Left at 8:00 p.m. when determined both children stable. Please call if situation changes. Will return by 11:00 p.m. Do not leave Ernest unattended. –Dr. Wilson**

“You know what happened with Ernie wasn't your fault, right?”

“I'm not stupid, daddy. I did the best I could.” Another lie. Like she was saying what she thought he wanted to hear, but didn’t really believe it.

He squeezed her tighter. “Yes, and you did good. You did everything I could've asked you to do, Banana. I'm so sorry I wasn't here for you both.”

She straightened up. “No you’re not. You shouldn’t be. If you hadn’t gone with mama you’d both be dead and Ernie too.”

“You think so?” Farm life gave children a matter of fact attitude toward death, but to hear what he had known from the moment he put Joanie in the car that morning—had it only been that morning?—put so plainly made his heart clench in his chest.

“I know so, Daddy.” She sat up to finger comb the knots out of her hair, then lay her head back against him. “Can girls be doctors?”

“Well, they can definitely be nurses,” he allowed. “And nurses are just as tough and smart as doctors.”

She frowned. Clearly that was the wrong answer. _Can McManns be doctors?_

“You're an O'Reilly. And O'Reillys have a proud history of helping people who are sick and hurt.”

She sniffled, then scrunched her eyebrows down over her forehead, clearly puzzled. “O’Reillys are farmers and mechanics, Daddy. I want to be a doctor, not just a nurse.”

“Well, I'll tell you this. I've never been scared of a doctor in my whole life, but I've met nurses who could eat nails for breakfast.” 

“You're not changing my mind, daddy.” _I don’t want people to be scared of me._

“Well, I hope not! Time for bed, Banana. John's in the kitchen and I think he and I need to have a chat. I'll see you over pancakes, okay?”

He settled Ernie more securely on the couch, then helped Anna to her feet. They stumbled against each other for a moment. Walter chuckled as he set Anna back upright. “I know medical school costs a lot of money,” she said. “But I'm going to be a doctor and I'm going to figure this thing out.” She flipped a hand toward her temple, biting her lip, eyes tracking back to Ernie on the couch.

He realized then that this doctor thing had to have been stewing for a long time. Oh, how she broke him, with all his troubles and all of Joan's brains. “You let us worry about the money, and you go off and dream about being Dr. O'Reilly.”

She let him help her up the stairs, pressed a kiss to his cheek and disappeared into her room, the one that Joanie’s sister had thought was John’s, with the X-Men comics and the spaceship models hanging from the ceiling. 

He took only a moment to peek into the room John and Hank shared. Hank was sprawled across the bed in his clothes. He knelt near the bottom of the bed to pull off his shoes one at a time and tuck him under his blankets. Then he went back downstairs for John.

*

John was still asleep at the table. Walter shook his shoulder. "C'mon John. You did good. Let's get you to bed."

John looked though his unruly hair. "Dad?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"The doctor's coming—"

"I know. I'll be here for him. You go on to bed."

"I'm sorry. " The yawn nearly cracks his jaw, "I got the twins to bed but I didn't brush their teeth and Mrs. Smitt said that was okay for one night and that I should stay up and keep watch, but--"

"But nothing. You did perfect."

He slid out of his seat. "How's Mom?"

"She's going to be in the hospital awhile, but she's going to be okay. And your new baby sister is big and healthy."

"Nuts. Another girl?"

Walter caught John around the neck and rubbed his knuckles into the boy’s thick brown hair until he chuckled and pulled away. Walter pulled him back into a gentler hug. "Sorry, Johnny, we're officially outnumbered. Now come on, I can't carry you up. You can lean on me if you're too tired to walk." Blessings come small in this house sometimes, but that boy and his uncomplicated mind are two of them.

He finished his second walk up the stairs and trudged back down, so foggy headed his vision swam and his hands and feet felt like they belonged to other people. He checked the clock on the mantle. Ten-fifteen. **Don’t leave Ernest unattended.**

He lay Ernie out on the couch, turned on his side like Hawkeye’d shown him long ago in a faraway place, top knee bent to keep him from rolling backward, one arm pulled out in front of him to keep him from rolling forward. He arranged himself on the floor, joints protesting—he wasn’t nineteen anymore. Lay his head on the couch cushions, inches from his sleeping boy’s face and closed his eyes. Just for a minute.


	3. The Straw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been six weeks since Betsy was born, and things just can't seem to get back to normal.

Walt looked around the kitchen unhappily. The dregs of last night's dishes, which he'd been too tired to finish, still teetered in a small pile in the long, shallow sink. Breakfast and lunch dishes were there, too, not that it took so many dishes for yet another round of peanut butter sandwiches. Joanie had said she'd get to them, but he knew she likely wouldn't.

He was—the best he could describe it, he was lonely. After what they’d been through with Betsy’s birth for the first week or two they’d clung, like children saved from fire, but the chores still needed doing and the kids still needed raising and he’d awakened fully from the nightmare of Betsy’s birth. And in some hard to define way, Joanie hadn’t. 

_Joan? Joanie??_ Her answer came slow, vague, wordless. She'd gone back to bed again. Walt sighed and got to scrubbing. He hated - absolutely hated - not knowing what to do.  
Betsy set up to cry again, but before Walter could even reach for a towel, Anna scooped her out of the cradle and settled her into the crook of her arm. She opened the refrigerator one handed to pull out the bottle Betsy hadn't finished before her nap, pulled out a small pot, and ran water, humming distractedly under her breath.

Walt frowned at the bottle. The nurse had been so encouraging about it - cleaner, safer, they said. She'd even joked, "Now Daddy can help with the feedings so Mommy can get a little more sleep!" He bristled at the implications, but Joan had laughed with the nurse, so he did, too. It wasn't her real laugh. He hadn't heard that in weeks.

It took him a minute to register that today was Monday. "Anna Banana," he said, his voice in a half-warning tone. "School isn't out for another twenty minutes. Have you been hiding from me all day?"

She turned around, shifting Betsy up to her shoulder with the practiced motions of an oldest girl. "I guess I'm getting better at it. Don't tell me you don't need the help. Or that I need the schooling." She judged the bottle warm enough, shook a bit of milk onto the inside of her wrist and toted Betsy over to a kitchen chair, which she hooked with her ankle to pull it out before sitting. "I'll get the dishes. You go lay with Mama."

Walt rubbed his head as he walked out, throwing Anna the mental equivalent of a kiss and an admonishment - _Don't lock me out like that again, Annabee. Love you._ He was halfway up the stairs when Anna filled his head with an image - his own face, through her eyes. Walt's chest tightened. He looked so tired. So beat. Tired like he was pulling sleepless shifts during the war, with almost the same kind of hopelessness and fear. Only this time, there wasn't anyone he could share it with.

His steps slowed as he reached the top. It was hard, seeing Joanie like this. Not just sad, not just tired. There was something wrong, deeper than that. She'd had a sad period for a while after the twins, but she'd pulled herself out of it, and she'd always kept going, the music in her muted, but still there. Now she was dissonance and pain, and it hurt him to be with her. He felt he was failing her, and he didn't know how to fix it.

 _Walt?_ Joanie’s voice was stronger now that he was closer. He put a hustle in his step, opened the door. She was curled on her side, facing the window.

 _Joanie?_ There was something wrong with Joanie's words. They came slow and hard won, and she saved them for when she had to speak. Joanie wasn’t exactly the flutteriest of social butterflies, she held her own in a conversation and then some. Or at least she had.

He wondered if perhaps he ought to call Hawkeye. The town hospital in Ottumwa hadn't had much advice to give, only to give her time to rest, though when she was supposed to rest with the house and the kids to manage he didn't know. He'd given up trying to pull in extra money doing people's taxes this year. There was too much to take care of, between the house and the farm, and though the money was sorely needed, he just didn't have the time.

_I'm sorry about the dishes._

"It's okay," he said, kicking his house slippers off - Joan had instated a no-boots-upstairs rule in the first month of their marriage - and crawled into bed behind her.

*

Walter smelled like hay and barn dust, like the clean sweat of morning chores in cool, damp air. Joan burrowed deeper under the covers, not sure if she was hiding from the guilt of abandoning him or the very idea of the outside. Maybe she did die in the hospital, and she was just a ghost, a shadow haunting her bedroom.

Walter disagreed, a sharpness in the negation that hurt. She knew she hurt him, being this sluggish and muddy headed. He was on the other hand, quite the opposite. Something had happened to them in that hospital, something he would not discuss with her, but it had changed him. Changed them.

He reached over her shoulders and plucked her hairbrush off the windowsill. Joan sighed and made a small noise of protest into the pillow. 

_Up,_ Walt said, putting a little force behind it, a little lift. He couldn't muscle her through the business of living, but he could loan her a little resolve, enough to get her to take a shower and let him brush her hair. Once, he wet down a towel and rubbed her all over, like the nurses used to, but something about it embarrassed her; he only had to threaten to do it again to get her up to the bath. He liked brushing her hair anyway. She could imagine she was just indulging him. 

The pull of her hair against her scalp prickled unpleasantly, but Walter's body was strong and soft underneath her. She would have to get up to take a bath. Today. She was just so tired. And everything was so gray and flat, and it was such a tremendous effort to remember that once she had cared.

A woman is supposed to care. Women were made of caring. They were the glue that held the world together, no matter that men thought they were in charge. But her thoughts slipped off the things she had once cared about and settled into puddles of gray.

Neither of them heard the knock at the door when it came. Or the tapping at the front window. Only when Ernie kicked off yelling, signaling the end of his nap, did Walt force himself out of bed. Joan wrestled the impulse to cover up and lie down again, but won, for the moment, grabbing her sandalwood box of pretty scented soap - a gift from Peg she only used on special occasions - on her way downstairs.

*

It took Walter a minute to realize there was a stranger in their kitchen.

Anna stood barefoot by the kitchen table, both hands on Ernie's shoulders, keeping him still by force of will.

"Anna," the stranger was saying, "you've missed three weeks of school in the last five. We thought you were sick. Your teachers were worried."

Her eyes were too wide, full of a combination of panic and apology, lighting on Joanie and Walter and back to the man in the kitchen.

Walt looked him up and down. He was wearing a policeman's shirt, but regular slacks, his shiny black shoes seemingly untouched by the yard mud. Anna trembled under his gaze.

"No one's saying you're in trouble, sweetheart," he continued. "I promise I'm not here to take you to jail. But children belong - "

"Excuse me, who are you?" Joan interrupted.

Walt's heart soared. He hadn't heard Joan's voice with that kind of strength since before - before Betsy. He stood up a little straighter, strengthened by her tone, giving Anna a nod. Anna looked hard at her mother, in her bathrobe - in front of company! - hair down and unkempt. Her shoulders dropped slightly. She offered her mother an anxious half smile, but kept her eyes on the invader in their home. Her terror poured out so thick Walt was amazed the policeman, if that was what he was, hadn't remarked upon it.

 _Anna Grace, put a lid on,_ Walt snapped.

_Yes, Daddy._

The stranger turned to them. "Mr. and Mrs. O'Reilly?" he asked, his voice serious but not angry. "I'm Officer Winston Murphy. The kids call me Officer Winston."

"The kids?" Joan asked. She was alert, focused on the officer, but her words still came a bit too slow, a bit too stretched out.

"I'm the truant officer, officially," he said, standing and extending a hand, "but I also come to give the lessons on how to get the police if there's trouble. For the kids who have telephones, we teach them the number to dial. For those who don't, we teach them how to get a neighbor, or how to get to the station.”

Joan stared at him. "Truant officer?"

He nodded. "Mhmm. School thought I should pay a visit to Miss Anna here, see if everything was all right at home."

"Officer, as you can see, we're all fine, here,” Walt said. “My wife had a difficult birth, and it’s taking her some time to get her strength back.”

The officer gave Joanie a long and inquisitive look. She pulled her robe tighter around her chest and smoothed her hair back with one hand, fixing him with as steely a glare as she could muster.

Anna took advantage of the momentary lack of scrutiny to settle Ernie onto the floor and get out a couple of Walter’s socket wrenches for him to stick his finger into the hole and spin.

"Well, it's - it's nice of you to come and check on her," Walt said from behind her. "It's nice to see the school takes such an interest when kids are home for a bit."

"Of course we do, Mr. O'Reilly," Officer Winston replied smoothly. "We know children can get sick, or there can be harvest and crop things that take all hands. We all come from farmers; we understand. But it's my job to make sure that children get to school as much as they can."

Anna stood again, careful to keep her body between Ernie and the truant officer. "They didn't keep me home," she volunteered. "It was my decision."

The officer turned back to Anna. "As I was saying to you before, your teachers say you're one of the brightest minds they know. They want you to keep coming to school so they can help you build your fine mind. It's important that you don't let it get lazy, don't you think?" The officer’s eyes tracked to the living room wall, where, among their shabby furniture and belongings rested a bookshelf stocked with a variety and number of books far beyond what might be expected of a farm family.

Anna turned purple. "They - they don't say that."

Officer Winston raised his eyebrows. "Do you presume to correct a police officer?"

Anna shrank back, and he chuckled. "I'm just teasing, honey. Okay, you're right - not every one of your teachers said exactly those words, but I can name a few that are very concerned for your education - namely that you get one."

"Officer," Joan broke in again. "I want to thank you for coming by. We will make certain Anna gets to school from now on. My husband can show you to the door." She moved out of the doorway with a look that brooked no argument. Officer Winston took one last look around the kitchen.

"Ma'am, would you mind joining us? I'm sure Anna can look after - who's this little fella?"

"Ernie," they all said in unison. Ernie didn't look up from the socket wrench.

"Ernie seems to be in fine hands. Why don't we all walk together?"

They walked to the front door in silence. Walt opened the door, and Officer Winston turned to them as he started out. 

"Ma'am, Sir, I don't wish threaten you, but keeping a child home from school for this long without proof of illness or hardship is a serious matter. Now, I trust that you'll be getting Anna to school, but she's a smart girl - I wasn't lying, and I know you know that. She can see that there's help needed around here, and unless you can assure her that you don't need her, she'll find a way to keep coming home. And the school can't have that," he said quietly. "There are consequences for such things. Not just for the children. You understand, I don't mean to threaten you. You just need to know."

"We'll see to it, officer," Joanie said, icily. 

Walter, for his part, wondered what, if not Betsy’s birth and Joanie’s incapacity, constituted hardship. But he couldn’t say so in front of her.

_Were you planning to tell me Anna was skipping school, Walter?_

_As soon as I found out._

_That child!_

Walt couldn't decide whether to be delighted at how far she seemed to have come back in the last fifteen minutes or upset about everything else.

Joanie marched herself into the kitchen, managing to put an irritated flounce into the swirl of her housecoat. "I'm going to take a bath," she finally said. "What do we have on for dinner?"

Peanut butter sandwiches, Walt thought glumly. The pantry was about run through on last summer's preserves, and with Betsy's formula taking up near half their grocery budget, they'd been living off the casserole kindness of the neighbors for far too long.

"I think we have some potatoes," Anna volunteered.

Joan glared at Anna. "I don't even know what to say to you," she fumed. "Lying! Sneaking about! Having the _police_ come to this house to find you. Is this how we taught you to behave, Anna Grace O'Reilly?"

Anna flinched. "I," her head shook like she was trying to clear it of bees. "I'll get the potatoes." She ducked into the mud room.

Walt waited by the mudroom door for Anna to return, twisting his fingers around the hem of his work shirt. He needed to pace. He needed to think. How much had he been missing? Was John skipping school too? They’d never run afoul of the truancy police before—not even when Anna was younger and they’d waited an extra year to send her to school, and then another, hoping she’d outgrow her brittleness. It helped that she’d taught herself to read from the advertisements in the Sears Roebuck catalog long before she was even of an age to go.

Anna returned, holding the bag of potatoes against her chest as though to disguise how few there were. “If we mash them, they’ll divide better,” she said. She crossed the room to the kitchen sink, head down.

Joanie spoke first. “Whatever gave you the idea you were allowed to skip school for weeks at a time?” she snapped.

Anna kept her eyes on the pitiful handful of potatoes sitting beside the sink. She rested on hand atop them so they wouldn’t roll to the floor. She turned on the sink and started to methodically scrub the dirt from a potato. “It’s, it’s okay. You need help here with Ernie and the baby.” She started to babble, her voice growing tight. “It was silly of me to even try. I can’t do it. It’s too hard. I’m just a girl, and I’m all messed up in the head, and I’m not getting married anyway so I can just stay here for as long as you need me. Like Joe.”

Walt saw the pitiful handful of potatoes in the sink strainer, the shamed hunch in Anna’s shoulders, and suddenly, it rattled him too hard. Without thinking, he flew across the room, nimbly stepping over Ernie, who was sprawled out on the floor, and around Betsy's bassinet. By the time he reached Anna, his head was a roar. He couldn’t decide what to say, was just a mass of frustration and anger wound up tight. His hand whipped out to grab Anna by the arm, to spin her around to face him so he could tell her—something— She stumbled away from him, eyes wide and he turned in on himself, the frustration, the need to hurt—someone—dear God, did he want to hurt Anna?--To make his own hurt real filled his mind so he could think of nothing else and he bit down on the meat of his thumb until he tasted blood.

_WALTER!_

He and Anna both flinched with the force of Joan's call. He stared dumbly at the angry, darkening mark on his own hand. Anna had dropped to the floor and was rocking rapidly, arms wrapped around her, hands scrubbing up and down her arms, humming.

Walter pushed the opposite thumb into the mark, hard, but only for a moment. He dropped to his daughter’s side to wait for the storm he triggered to pass, too worked up himself to serve as any kind of anchor. He could only sit, and wait, and watch.

Joanie lay a hand on his shoulder, firm, with a bit of claw to the fingers. 

Walt hauled himself to his feet and turned around. Joan had picked up the baby and was rocking her against her breast, like she'd be holding her if she was nursing. Betsy, bless her, by far the most even-tempered of the babies, gurgled contentedly and grasped at Joan's housecoat. 

"Walter. Edward. O'Reilly." Her voice was completely flat. "I'm grateful your mother isn't alive to see the man you nearly just became."

"Joan, I didn’t—I wouldn’t--" His mouth refused to finish what felt like a lie.

"We _agreed_ Walt," she hissed. "We said never. Never! Not the way my father did it. Not the way half the kids in this town lose teeth over late chores when their fathers have been at the bar too long. We. Said. Never."

Walt felt like his bones had turned to rubber bands. He staggered to the table and dropped into a chair. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t have.”

“You might as well have done.” She regarded their daughter where she sat, curled in on herself on the floor. Ernie’d backed off even further into the back corner of the kitchen. The faint scree of his wrenches spinning on the floor matched the pitch of Anna’s humming. 

Walt and Joan got hold of themselves enough to take a few steps away, into the living room. Joan’s face was inches from Walt’s, close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath. “What did you tell me, before we had John? When I told you about my Pa and how I just didn’t know. I didn’t know how I could be a good mother, because I just couldn’t strike a child without seeing his face, hearing his voice.” She turned half away from him.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. He reached for her shoulder.

She waved off his intended embrace. “I married you for love, don’t you go thinking otherwise, but.” She shook her head. “I let myself love you because you’re kind. And gentle, maybe too gentle for your own good.” She paused again, eyes pointed through the doorway into the kitchen, but not seeing. And because I can count the number of times you’ve had a drink without taking off my shoes.”

“You told me you thought we could do better. We would do better. And we have done. Till now.” She took his hand. He tried to pull away, to spare her from the mess in his head. She clucked at him bitterly, _Should have thought of that before. You know full well you can’t lay a hand on that child in anger._

“I’m sorry,” he said again, though it didn’t matter.

She raised his hand in hers, gesturing to the purpling bite. "Is this who you think you are?”

“I had to,” he said. And now he was the one without words. He couldn’t explain that crawling restless need to focus all his pain into one place.

_If this is who you are, you want to hurt somebody so bad all you can think to do is hurt yourself—I don’t know you anymore._

_I'm already half afraid I don't know YOU anymore._ The thought startled them both. Walt looked up into Joan's face and the two of them held each other’s gaze.

 _You don’t._ She dropped his hand and crossed the room to drop onto the couch, face turned away from him. The power in her voice was gone, as if it had never been there. “I’m not. I’m not me anymore.”

There was a rustle, the soft sound of fabric brushing against wood. Anna stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, head still bowed, chewing her lip. “I didn’t mean to cause so much trouble,” she said.

“Anna.” Walter spared another look at his wife before turning toward his daughter. "Don't you ever," he whispered fiercely. "Don't you ever lie to yourself like that, understand?" He put a hand on her shoulder - she flinched again, but nodded without looking up. He squeezed hard, wanting her to remember, desperately wanting it to stick. "You are going to be a doctor, remember?" he said, trying for what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "We've all known since you told us when you were little. We weren't allowed to question it. You shouldn't be, either."

Anna sniffled. "I just." She took a step back, out of his grasp. “It’s not just mom. It’s the bus, and the boys chase me, and the girls make fun of my clothes and my hair, and everybody stands too close and talks too loud. It’s too hard.”

Walt opened his arms. Anna approached him with dragging steps to rest her head gingerly against his shirt. He pulled her into his arms and rubbed her back. "I know, Bee. I know. But running away from school isn't going to make you what you want to be. You know that."

She sniffled. "You won't be okay if I go back." _I won’t be okay if I go back._

Walt ignored the comment, mostly because he didn't have an answer. "Listen," he said. "Your Mama is going to go have a bath. You are going to go milk Reya, and bring me what you get, and I'm going to get dinner on. I'll need your help with the little ones.” She nodded against his shirt and took off.

For all he wanted to drop down onto the couch by his wife, spent as he was, there was work to be done. He could hear Hank and the twins outside, running off their after school energy. He put on a pot of water to boil the potatoes, searched the pantry and found, miracle of miracles, a couple jars of green beans from last summer. This summer, he swore, he’d let Hank have the full quarter acre he’d wanted for his personal garden—he just hadn’t realized how serious a gardener, or canner, that boy would turn out to be. 

That boy stumbled across the threshold with his own contribution as surely as if he’d been called, arms full of dirty white globes. “Spring onions, Pop!” he said. “Anna said they’d go good with the potatoes.”

Walt pulled his second son into a one armed hug. “That they will, son.” He looked down. “Do me a favor and wipe the mud off your mother’s floor before she sees it.”

“What mud?”

Walt shook his head. They’d be all right. All of them. Between John’s hard work and Anna’s smarts and Hank’s joy and occasional flashes of brilliance, just when they needed them most. They’d be all right. Wouldn’t they?


	4. When it all falls down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in San Francisco, a careless mistake lands the Pierce-Hunnicutts in hot water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The period typical homophobia is strong in this chapter (and a major plot point), just so you're all aware.

Hawkeye relished many things about being a stateside surgeon in peacetime: the large, clean hospitals, going home to a real bed full of family each night, injuries that were, in some ways, less senseless. He'd been second to the chief of cardio-thoracic surgery for four years, while BJ had taken control of the emergency room downstairs almost a decade before. The predictable schedule meant Hawkeye could be home with Peg on the nights when BJ was called in to cover a late shift or help in an emergency. Hawk didn't know how he managed - BJ's office was functionally a broom closet with a coffeepot. Hawkeye's office overlooked the bay, had room for a couch, and a door that locked. His lab was just down the hall. 

Of course, it was especially nice that BJ had somewhere to come visit on his odd moment off, here or there.

*

Mae Westinghouse was a good woman and a fantastic administrative secretary, if she did say so herself. When the electrician showed up at her desk outside Dr. Pierce's private office asking to be let in, she took a look at the clock and his schedule, noted that he ought to be in surgery right now, and took the spare key from her desk to let the man in to do his work. Dr. Pierce would doubtless be delighted to find that his overhead light no longer flickered at the slightest disturbance.

She wasn't entirely shocked to find Dr. Hunnicutt from Emergency sprawled out on the tan leather couch - he and Dr. Pierce often took lunch together in the office, or Dr. Hunnicutt would come upstairs personally to inform his colleague of a difficult heart case on its way in to his department. Mae liked him - always polite, with a kind smile, even when he was in a rush. Sometimes he came close to flirting with her in a way that seemed altogether harmless, designed to make her blush with delight, rather than embarrassment.

She cleared her throat. "Dr. Hunnicutt?" He blinked several times, stretching out before sitting up and rubbing his eyes. 

"I'm sorry, Mae," he said, smiling wanly. "I didn't get to go home last night and needed to catch a little rest. I'll head out now."

Before she could say anything, he headed out the door and was down the hall in a flash. Mae pointed the electrician to the problem and headed back to her desk.

She could hear the electrician setting up the ladder in the other room, the creak as he climbed it, and then a sudden exclamation. She rushed to the door. "Something wrong?"

"No, no ma'am. Don't come in, I have it all under control, ma'am."

She nodded politely and shut the door on the electrician. She heard the sounds of the electrician closing up the ladder, then a long pause before the doorknob turned and he finally stepped out, sweat beading across the dark skin of his bald head.

"Is it all right now?" she asked, getting up to see him out.

"Uh - yes ma'am, yes. It's as good as new."

"Wonderful. The doctor will be so pleased," she said. "Thank you for your work," she added. Dr. Pierce insisted that she maintain a demeanor one notch above standard decorum with workmen of any color. 

"They do exactly what I do, Mae," he'd said earnestly after she'd failed to thank the young Mexican man who cleaned the office one day. "I'm just a plumber who got lost in the wrong sewer system. There's hardly a difference, plus I'm hopeless at fixing toilets. Or anything that isn't attached to an artery."

Now, the electrician stood by the door, looking puzzled and a little distressed. 

"Is there something else?" Mae asked.

"Uh, no ma'am," he said, but his eyes kept tracking to the newly closed door. "I should go." And with that, he hurried out of the office as if he were late for an appointment.

Mae opened the door, wondering what had gotten the workman into such a state. She hoped he hadn't seen a mouse. Exterminators were hard to get in and out discreetly on short notice, and a hospital had to maintain its reputation. What was that sticking out from behind the couch? A shoe? Men were so messy sometimes. Even doctors. Maybe especially doctors, given their execrable handwriting. Well, she'd just go in and tidy up a little.

Mae started at the desk, shuffling Dr. Pierce's papers into slightly neater piles than the ones he'd left - she didn't dare rearrange anything that might be important, but who would argue that an orderly desk might lead to a more orderly mind? She continued with the coffee table, straightening a few medical journals, then to the couch, to plump and set the pillow Dr. Hunnicutt had been sleeping on. 

The couch. 

Why did it seem different?

The room smelled a little funny. The pillow smelled like it could use a wash. She tucked it under her arm, leaned over, and found Dr. Pierce, huddled behind it with his fist stuffed in his mouth and his clothes! Well mercy! Mae was a good woman and an even better secretary, but she had to draw the line somewhere.

She would not, however, confront Dr. Pierce over whatever he might be doing hiding behind the couch in his unmentionables. Not until she had a cup of coffee and a moment to collect herself. Honestly!

They locked eyes for a moment before she turned to leave the room, closing the door behind her. Give the man a minute to dress, and the explanation - however strange - would be sure to follow.

She went to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup, half chuckling to herself at the absurdity of it all. A couple of sips in, the doorknob turned, and Dr. Pierce stepped out, his belt buckled on an odd notch and his lab coat inside out. He raked a hand through his hair.

"Well, Mae, I was wondering when you'd finally take me up on the offer to get to know each other better," he said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

She smiled back nervously, waiting for the rest of the sure-to-come explanation.

He turned as though to leave, and she blurted, "Dr. Pierce, I think you owe me an explanation for that!"

He looked at her, his eyes gone flat, almost chilly. "I don't believe I do. Afternoon, Mae." His long strides took him to the door. He paused, scrubbed at his hair, and pulled the door shut behind him.

She stared at her desk for a long moment. Could the doctor be ill, seeking a private exam for what? Cancer? Why else would Dr. Hunnicutt be in there with him and him all indecent like that? Oh. Oh, no. She could hardly imagine. The two of them were awfully close, so close she'd thought at first they were brothers despite their different coloring, always with arms around each other or playfully pulling each other into half nelsons like her boys did when they were younger, before they'd moved to opposite sides of the continent.

She crept back into the office, just long enough to allay her suspicions, though she wasn't quite sure what she was looking for until she saw it, tiny and crumpled in the garbage: Incontrovertible evidence.

*

Dr. Atticus Norwich was a kind man who wasn't sure how he'd ended up a hospital administrator. Somewhere along the way, he'd taken an unexpected left turn out of surgery and into the world of scheduling, teaching, conflict resolution and - the worst part - office politicking. Still, he had a knack for spotting and nurturing talent. Young Hunnicutt down in Emergency; fresh out of Korea, he'd shown a talent for managing a crisis that bested the veterans of the ER. Pierce in cardio - once he'd figured out that the man needed a puzzle, a challenge, he set him up with a lab and charged him with solving the most difficult problems in thoracic surgery. The progress he'd made on congenital heart defects alone was enough to put his name on the door.

Pierce had been a challenge himself on his arrival at the hospital - an undisciplined mess, a surgical genius, and a shellshocked lothario trying to outrun his own mind. If there was one thing Atticus Norwich hated, it was a disorderly hospital. It was one of the reasons he worked so hard to get his men doing what they were best at, most passionate about - occupied doctors made for a smooth-running hospital.

So it was with a little trepidation that he invited Mae Westinghouse into his office. She looked utterly distraught - a sign, he knew, that something had to be off with Pierce.

Like he needed that headache today.

It took Mae a few minutes to start getting the words out. Dr. Norwich sat patiently, his brow furrowed with concern. "The electrician came today," she finally said.

Atticus waved a hand to encourage her. "And?"

She pressed her lips together until they wrinkled, then blew a breath out her nose and said, "Dr. Pierce and Dr. Hunnicutt were in the office together." Her whole face pursed. "Fornicating."

Atticus blinked. "I'm sorry?" he said. He couldn't have heard her right. Women like Mae Westinghouse did not utter words like 'fornication' to their bosses' bosses. Women like Mae Westinghouse did not belong with words like that in their heads, let alone in their mouths.

Mae started to tremble, looking down at the glass paperweight on the edge of Atticus's desk. "I found Dr. Pierce in a most...compromising position. Dr. Hunnicutt was also in the room. And then - "

Atticus’ heart began to race.

"I have proof," she finished abruptly.

"Mrs. Westinghouse," Atticus began, wholly unsure of where he was going. "Are you quite sure you're saying what I think you're saying?"

Mae paused a long moment, tracing the molding where the wall met the ceiling with her eyes, then nodded convulsively. Her fingers drummed at her sides. "There are cobwebs up in the corners there. You ought to see to that," she said, apropos of nothing, in a voice grown high and thin.

"What exactly does this proof consist of?" Atticus said, keeping his voice low, slow, and crisply clear.

"Please do not make me produce it." Color rose, bright blossoms splashing her cheeks in a face otherwise blue-white.

Atticus leaned forward, resting his folded arms on his desk. "Mae," he said quietly. "You've been here, what - fourteen years?"

"Seventeen, sir," she answered.

"And how many doctors have you worked for?"

She paused for a minute. "Four, sir."

"And have you ever had any - trouble - with any of them before?"

She shook her head. 

"Including Dr. Pierce?"

"Not until today, sir."

"And you - I'm afraid I must ask - you're telling me that you saw Dr. Pierce and Dr. Hunnicutt behaving - inappropriately?"

Mae looked up, her eyes squinted and angry. "They had the decency to try and cover it up," she admitted. "But if you..." she trailed off.

"If I what, dear?" 

"I haven't emptied his trash," she whispered.

Atticus leaned back in his chair until it squeaked and rested his laced fingers on his chest to regard her. "How many lives do you think Dr. Hunnicutt saves in a given week? Or Dr. Pierce. How many babies has he given a chance at life just this year? I can give you that number, actually. It's twenty-six."

"It's--immoral. And, and Dr. Hunnicutt is married!" Mae swallowed. "I know doctors have affairs, but this I cannot abide."

"Have you, Mae?"

"Have I what?" she said.

"Have you abided affairs among the doctors you have served, Mae?"

Mae's shaking grew. She twisted her hands in the tweed pleats of her skirt to keep it from showing too much. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Before you had Pierce, you had Bronson, didn't you?" Now his eyes narrowed. "Bronson. I'm sure you're aware of the circumstances of his departure."

"He left to spend time with his wife and family," Mae answered through gritted teeth.

"After nearly bringing down the hospital by giving four nurses syphilis!" Atticus hissed. "But I didn't hear a word about that from you."

"It wasn't any of my business."

"But this is?"

Mae stared at him. "How can you call it the same?" she asked. "Dr. Hunnicutt has children at home. Shouldn't we be thinking of them?"

Atticus sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "What do you want me to do, Mae?"

"They should not be representing this hospital. Perhaps they could be sent away somewhere else, somewhere they could be taught how to behave properly." She smoothed her skirt again, this time with a sort of finality. "I don’t want to have to take this any further than I have,” she said pointedly, glancing upward, where the hospital chief had his office. "

Atticus sighed. He didn't have many superiors at the hospital, but he remained beholden to the hospital board, and if they were to get wind of something like this, especially if it was clear that he knew and did nothing Pierce and Hunnicutt's careers wouldn't be the only ones ruined. "Will you give me time to consider the best course of action in this case?"

Mae sat up, not realizing she'd been hunched over the desk. She nodded. "I hope you come to a swift conclusion," she said primly, getting up to leave.

"Mrs. Westinghouse?"

Mae turned.

"I promise to act swiftly. In return, I ask that you tell no one of the events of this afternoon, in deference to discretion. Otherwise," he said, bluffing madly, "I could see to it that your own reputation finds itself in troublesome company."

Mae faltered. "I understand, Doctor."

"I'm glad. Why don't you take the rest of the day off, Mae? It's a beautiful day. I'm sure a walk along the water is just what you need."

She nodded. "That sounds nice, Doctor."

"Good girl. I'll see you tomorrow. Please report to me before you see Dr. Pierce."

Once Mae had retreated from his office, Atticus pressed the intercom button to call his own secretary. "Julia, I'll be out of the office for the rest of the day. Please reschedule my appointments."

He was sure she answered, but he didn't bother to listen to the words. He left the office in a hurry, hoping to find Pierce before the man did anything any more idiotic than he'd already done today.

*

Hawkeye found BJ splinting a kid's arm in the ER, doing his usual shtick to keep the kid distracted. He wore a rubber clown nose that he kept tucked into his lab coat pocket for the purpose, and kept a spare set of guessing games on hand to keep his patients from focusing too hard on the pain.

"Elmer?" he was saying to the kid - a Black boy, maybe nine, in a bright striped shirt and green pants. The kid shook his head. "Ah-ah," BJ admonished. "No shaking. Remember what you say when I guess wrong?"

"No way, Doc!" the kid said. 

"That's right. Okay, let me try again. Is your teddy bear's name...Tiger?" 

"No way, Doc!" 

"Okay, I only have three guesses left. I should make them good. Let me see...is it Colonel Mustardface Humperdink?" 

The kid burst out laughing as BJ finished the splint. "No way, Doc."

"I'm going to guess it's Beary," Hawkeye called from the edge of the curtain, unable, even in the stress of the moment, to keep a certain fondness out of his voice.

The kid looked from BJ to Hawkeye, eyes wide. "Well?" BJ asked, gesturing to Hawkeye. "Did he get it?"

"I don't know what to say when he guesses right," the kid whispered. "I can't say 'No way, Doc!"

"How about You got it, Hawk?" BJ said.

"You got it, Hawk!"

BJ finished the splint and gave the boy's mother instructions on how to look after the sprained wrist. Hawkeye had that look he would get on his face when he had to give a family bad news. It was making the mother nervous. It was making BJ nervous, to be honest. "I'll see you as soon as I'm finished here," he said, and Hawkeye took the cue and backed out of sight.

In another couple of minutes, he sent them on their way. "What's up, Hawkeye?" he said, as casual as if he didn't already know something was wrong.

"Figured I'd get lunch offsite today. You got time?" Hawkeye asked. "I haven't been to that Greek place by the water in ages."

BJ looked around. The ER was never quiet, exactly, but it wasn't a heavy day. "Let me check with the charge nurse and let my residents know," he said. "I'll meet you at the bus stop."

Hawkeye shed his lab coat on his way out, sticking it in a broom closet near the doors. He could sense, rather than see, BJ coming behind him, but didn't slow his stride until they were several blocks from the hospital. BJ caught up with him, the two walking as close as they dared in lock step.

"Mae saw," Hawkeye said tightly, not wanting to drag it out. "We need to get home, and fast. We may not have any time."

"What do you mean, she saw?" BJ spluttered, though in another couple of seconds, before Hawk had a chance to answer, he understood. "We've got to get out of town. Today."

Hawk nodded. "Let's grab a cab. It's - " he checked his wristwatch - "almost one. Where's Peg going to be right now?"

"Shopping?" BJ guessed. "Library? House showing?"

"No open houses today," Hawkeye replied. He turned abruptly down an alley. BJ followed on his heels. Hawkeye walked his head bent, arms swinging slightly, muttering as he went.

"You talking to me, Hawk?"

"What else was she going to think? We were so careless, Beej. How could we have been so careless? How did we not think? It's not like we're newlyweds, we should be sexless old farts by now who don't get busted for a little afternoon delight by a sanctimonious secretary!"

BJ opened his mouth to defend them, but closed it. Hawkeye was right. They had been beyond stupid. They'd gotten complacent after a decade and change of steady, rewarding work in a place that seemed to appreciate their gifts--it had started to feel like a safe place, and they had gotten careless. "Kids will be home from school at three thirty. Think we have that long?"

Hawkeye glanced at the cab driver, who probably spoke English better than he let on. "I don't know. He paused, inspiration striking. “Peg’s _sister_ Joanie O’Reilly's been awful sick after the baby."

He watched the subterfuge slowly register as BJ started to nod. "But did Walt say....how long Joanie might be needing our help?" 

"Who knows?" Hawkeye was saying. "Could be awhile. You know how some women are when they have babies. Plus, I think he said the baby was sick, too. It's gotta be rough out there."

"You think they wouldn't minda couple of bachelor houseguests?"

Just then, the driver pulled up to their street and the conversation had to be paused for instructions and fares. As soon as they got out, Hawkeye ran into the house, bellowing "Peg? Peg!!"

BJ flew past him and out the back door to where Peg stood in the garden. He pulled her into a tight, selfish hug, since once he had to tell her what happened she might not want to hug him again for a long time. "Peg. We’ve been caught. We've got to get out, fast."

Peg blinked up at him and nodded. "You each have cases packed under the bed. How much do they know?" She had her business face on, but her voice trembled at the end.

"Only about me and Hawk. We'll both have to go. You've got a little more time if you can play the horrified housewife."

She nodded and dropped her eyes to the ground. "It won't be much of a stretch.”

Hawkeye stopped short when he saw them. A decade on, and still some moments seemed to flicker with a certain uncertainty, leaving him feeling like he might be interrupting. 

"Hawk," BJ said, his voice choked and muffled into Peg's hair. "Don't just stand there." Hawkeye covered the ground in a few swift steps. Peg flew into his arms and clung. For a moment, there were no sounds except all of them trying not to cry. Or think.

Then the phone rang.

"I'll get it," she said, quietly. She pulled away from them both and hurried through the open back door into the kitchen, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. She gave herself one deep breath and answered the phone. "Hunnicutt residence, who may I ask is calling?"

"Dr. Norwich," she said smoothly, turning away from Hawkeye and BJ's horrified faces. "Is something wrong? Is BJ all right?" She had her business voice down cold. Must be from all that time spent working in real estate. She still impressed the hell out of him. 

Without meaning to, Hawkeye reached for BJ's hand. He should've been running, packing, planning. But all he could seem to do was reach out, hold on, and wait.

*

Peg listened to the man on the other end of the line. His voice had the strained quality of someone pretending everything was all right when it wasn’t. "They left for lunch and are late returning,” Atticus said. I was concerned and thought you might know where they'd gotten off to."

Peg chuckled into the receiver. "Ah. No, haven't seen them. Perhaps lunch just went long." The lie burned in her throat. Atticus was a good friend and deserved better than to have two of his best surgeons vanish without a trace. 

Atticus continued, "Well, if you do see them, Peggy - would you have them back here as soon as possible? Or have them call me?"

"I certainly will. By the way, how's Estelle?"

"She's doing well - going crazy with packing up the last one for college. He's going to Stanford."

Yes, Peg thought, we all know he's going to Stanford. "I'm sure she's anxious. Well - "

"Peggy?"

"Yes, Atticus?"

"When you see them - if I don't first - will you tell them it's quite urgent?" 

Peggy huffed another short laugh. "Well now you've got me nervous. Sometimes I forget you're the boss up there. Have those two been getting themselves in trouble?"

Hawkeye made a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

"Just tell them I need to talk to them. As soon as possible."

She looked behind her to where her husbands were clinging to each other like a pair of refugee children. "I'll let them know." She hung up the phone, folded her arms across her chest, and gestured wtoward them slightly with one hand. "Your call. You want to talk to him first or vanish like ghosts?"

Hawkeye pulled away from BJ to pace. "I think we have to disappear. It gives you better cover as the wronged wife. We've got the kids to think of."

"Wait," BJ said. "Peg, what did he sound like? Did he sound..."

"Angry?" Hawkeye filled in. "Betrayed? Furious? Disgusted?"

"He sounded serious. And worried," Peg said, tapping the receiver against her chin. "I have an idea."

"Glad somebody does," BJ muttered.

"We do have a plan," Hawkeye reminded him. 

BJ blurted, "It's polite to call your hosts before you descend on their farmhouse right after they've had a baby!" 

"Shut up!" Peg put her finger to the phone and started dialing. A few seconds later, they heard her say "Dr. Atticus Norwich please. Tell him it's Peggy Hunnicutt. It's urgent."

"What the hell are you doing?" Hawkeye hissed. 

"Atticus?" this time her voice was higher. Shakier. "Atticus, I think you need to tell me what's wrong. I've just checked the closet and their - BJ's suitcase is gone and so are half his clothes." 

BJ and Hawkeye exchanged a look. Not a bad idea. 

"The car keys are gone, too, and he usually takes the bus to work," she added, starting to cry a little bit, letting a few real emotions slip to get further into the role. "Please, Atticus, tell me what's happened." She listened for a moment and then sniffed, clearing her throat. "No, I'm all right," she said in a more level tone. "Whatever it is, I can take it. Please, just - okay. Okay. I'll wait."

She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, "He's closing the door to his office."

The pause was long, and at the end of it, Atticus' voice was gentle. "I'm so sorry, Peg. I...I hate that you're caught in the middle of this. Hawkeye was caught in a compromising situation in his office this afternoon."

"Well, that's hardly news," she quipped, forcing the joke.

"Actually," Atticus continued, "it rather is news. Hawkeye may have a bit of a reputation when it comes to flirtations, but his actual dalliances seem...limited, to the extent the exist at all. I'd wondered about it before, but thought perhaps that his ways with the nurses and staff were merely little games to pass the time at work. But Peg, what we found - "

"We? Who's we?" 

"Well, it was Hawkeye's secretary. She's a bit of a prim and proper type. And she was the one who found him."

"Found him where? And what does this have to do with BJ?"

"Well, Peggy..." Atticus sighed. "It seems that Mae found Hawkeye _with_ BJ."

"And that's unusual?"

Atticus sighed long on the other end of the line. "Your husband was found in a compromising position with Hawkeye Pierce, Peg. I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

If the situation weren't so serious, Peg would have burst out laughing. Although the fact they couldn't keep their pants on until they got home was beginning to poke a few holes in her compassion. "I--see." She swallowed. "Well. What do you plan to do about it?" She took a couple of deep breaths. "I've got a house that's not paid for and a daughter going to college in a little over a year. I don't have to tell you how much that costs." She let her voice rise in pitch and volume, letting some of her real panic leak into it.

*

Atticus panicked. He'd been hoping desperately that BJ was hiding out at home. Of course they'd run. What else were they to do? And what was Peg to do? And the children? 

"Peggy, it's going to be all right," he said firmly. "Estelle and I will be here for you - whatever you need. I know this must be a terrible shock."

He heard some muffled breathing on the other end - she must be crying, poor girl. "Peggy?"

He heard her take a deep breath. "I'm here, Dr. Norwich," she said steadily. "Listen, I have some ideas of where they - where BJ might have gone. What should I tell him if I find him?"

Atticus chewed on a fingernail. "Tell him to call me."

"Are you going to turn him in?" Her voice took on an edge.

"No! Peggy, no, of course not. He needs help, and we'll get him some. He can resign his position. Nobody knows yet. We can keep this discreet."

"And Hawkeye?"

Atticus faltered. She sounded more concerned than angry, poor woman. But I suppose, after knowing a man for as long as she’d known him, perhaps she’d gotten attached. "I'm - er - not sure. Perhaps if he agrees to...treatment...we can offer him something similar."

Hawkeye kept his face turned away from the receiver, but he could hear from where his head was pressed up next to hers. He shook his head. "Treatment," Peg said, trying to get just the right amount of dubious gratitude into her voice in spite of her rising anger. They didn't need treatment any more than she did.

She licked her lips. "I'll tell BJ when--if--he calls. I can't imagine he won't call to talk to Danny and Erin." Danny and Erin. What would she tell them? Should she try to play the grieving, betrayed spouse in public for the next six weeks, until the school year was over? What could she tell them? It wouldn't take long rumors to spread all over their schools.

"Of course he will," Atticus said reassuringly. "Listen, I have to go, Peggy, but we'll be in touch, all right? Just keep a stiff upper lip and your chin up. This isn't your fault," he added. "BJ needs our help, and we will see this through."

"Thank you, Atticus," Peg replied as warmly as she could muster before saying goodbye and hanging up the phone. She turned to BJ and Hawkeye, hugging her arms over her belly. "He's willing to let you resign. Wants to keep it quiet. I think you should call him."

"And then what?" Hawkeye asked. "Let them send us to the looney bin for a chosen selection of bible passages and - and - and - chemical castration?" his voice rose and sped as he talked.

"At least we could get a clean break. Tell him we're going out of town for treatment," BJ mused. 

"We have to think of the kids," Peg whispered. "What are we going to tell Erin and Danny?"

Hawkeye looked at his watch. "We've got an hour to figure it out. In the meantime, I'm calling Norwich." He grabbed the phone before either of them could move and dialed his boss's direct line.

"Atticus? It's Hawkeye. Listen, I'm not going to be in for the rest of today. Uh-huh. Oh. Oh shit. What did she say? Did she tell anyone?" He whirled toward the door, away from Peg and BJ's faces, the phone cord wrapping around him. "Well, I'm not sure I know how to answer that. Look, I - yes. Yes." He paused again, and when he spoke, his voice was full of defeat. "You'll have it by tomorrow. Don't bother. I'll come in around midnight to clear out my office and leave it on your desk."

He slammed down the phone and didn't turn around, leaning against the bright rooster print wallpaper. "Beej," he said thickly. "She didn't just put it together. She looked in the trash." 

Peggy looked to BJ, stricken. "How could you have been so _stupid_?" she hissed.

"She came in suddenly. It was all we could do to get Hawkeye behind the couch!"

"Are you two nineteen? You can't wait five hours until you get home to go at each other?" They had been stupid. Really, really stupid. Enough that she would be well within her right to throw dishes around the kitchen and throw both of them out of the house.

Hawkeye turned to her, hands out, supplicant. "It was my fault. It's been a while. Our schedules were off. You know. And then there was the ten car--"

"Twelve car," BJ amended.

"Twelve car pileup on the bridge. BJ was in surgery for so long and there were so many they called me in to help. It's been, it was just a long time. My fault. I'm sorry. I'll be out of your life..."

Peg burst out laughing, mirthless, a hysterical cackle she didn't know she had in her. "You'll be out of my life?" she repeated. "Benjamin Franklin Pierce, I swear on your mother's grave - don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare."

BJ flinched as she swore. It was that uncommon. "Hawk," he said, "don't get panicky. The kids are coming home soon. Let's figure that out."

Hawkeye dropped his head into his hands and went to the living room. "You should probably call Atticus," he called. "Let him know you'll be gone tomorrow."

BJ sighed and picked up the phone. "He's right." He dialed the hospital, asking for Dr. Norwich. The conversation didn't differ much from Hawkeye’s. BJ promised to bring his resignation letter, and Norwich informed him that he wouldn't let the word get out. He did spend some time suggesting the names of different hospitals and "places one could go," and BJ helplessly pretended to take them under consideration. Finally, he hung up. Peg pulled him into her arms. 

"He told me he'd take care of you while I was getting my head right," BJ mumbled into her hair. "Should I be worried?"

"No," she considered the thought just long enough for the image of herself and Norwich and shuddered involuntarily. "Ugh, no."

The two of them were to wound up in their own heads to think straight. She wasn't much better, but she was a woman and frankly, used to solving impossible problems with no time or peanut butter. "All right. I will call the O'Reillys and let them know you're coming for a visit. You need--you need to be gone before the kids get here. I need to talk to them about school. Tonight, after the three of us have decided whether we're coming with you right away or at the end of the school year, I will call Joanie O'Reilly to let her know the plan. You’ll have to drive. Erin and I will split the driving in Hawkeye’s car. You two take BJ's car. The radio isn't working in it and frankly, that's the least you deserve. The three of us will follow in Hawkeye's car."

"Yes, ma'am," BJ said. Hawkeye snickered.

"And do not look at me like that. You are not getting one for the road. Nor will you be getting any on the road. Serves you right for getting caught."

Hawkeye sobered. "No, Peg. We wouldn't - " 

"No, you most definitely wouldn't. Because - " her voice hitched and the tears she'd been swallowing afternoon finally hit their mark " - because I will most certainly not hear of two men shot dead somewhere in Nevada for acting like fools somewhere they should've known better." 

BJ swept her into his arms and pulled her tight. "Never. Never. I promise, Peg. Shhhh."

Hawkeye came around and tapped BJ on the shoulder. "My turn." BJ gave Peg one long kiss on her forehead before stepping away. Hawkeye didn't pull her close. He held her by the shoulders and looked her in the eye. Peggy wiped her nose and eyes on the hem of her shirt and looked back. His eyes bored deep into hers, searching. Maybe memorizing. Finally, he closed his eyes and kissed her in the same spot BJ had. 

BJ went upstairs to get the suitcases. Hawkeye paced, examining his near-empty wallet. "I'll stop by the bank," he said out loud to no one in particular. He turned to Peggy. "We'll, uh - we'll pick up supplies in Richmond. Come back when the kids are asleep to say goodbye before we head for the hospital to -" he swallowed "- to close things out."

Peggy nodded. BJ came down the stairs with the matching suitcases in hand. He gave Peggy one more kiss, then looked to Hawkeye.

Peggy watched as the car pulled away then checked the kitchen clock. The kids would be home in minutes. She splashed some cold water on her face and racked her brains for a plan.


	5. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawkeye and BJ prepare for their flight to Iowa. Peg deals with the fallout at home.

Danny only lived half a mile from school, which meant he could walk home and give the rowdy seventh and eighth graders a miss. The worst thing about it was having to walk home in all kinds of weather. He looked up at the sky. It wasn't raining yet, but it was starting to sprinkle and it was one of those days when a sprinkle could turn into a downpour in no time flat.

He was in sight of the house when it finally did. He broke into a run, racing across the last few yards to the house, hoping to get inside before his homework got wet. He pulled the door open and let it go a little too quick, so it slammed behind him. He remembered to stand still on the square of old carpet right in front of the door, though, to keep from tracking in mud. "Mom, it's raining!" he shouted, sitting down to pull off his now-muddy shoes. 

"Danny?" Mom called.

That was not his favorite mom voice. Not at all. "What's wrong, Mom?"

*

Hawkeye wove through the back streets, looking for any number of things - a place to eat lunch, a place to buy road maps - but the first place he felt safe stopping the car was in Berkeley, outside a barbershop in a neighborhood that seemed to take pride in its anonymity. 

BJ looked up, confused. "Where are we going?" 

"Incognito," Hawkeye replied, getting out of the car. "You and I need haircuts that look a little more Middle America - and for once and for all, that cheesy mustache is history." 

BJ followed him into the barbershop. They looked out of place in their suits and leather shoes, but the barber, a gruff man in blue shirtsleeves with too little hair to trim, had them in chairs in an instant. He grunted and motioned to someone at the back of the room - a younger guy, likely his son - and proceeded to take Hawkeye's instructions of "We're going to visit our mother and she hates hippies" to heart.

*

Mom smiled without her eyes. Her face was puffy. Daniel felt his throat tighten up. "Did somebody die?"

Mom dropped to her knees in front of Danny and pulled him into a tight hug. When she'd squeezed all his air out, she held him out in front of her by the shoulders. "Daddy and Hawk had to go. You and I need to talk."

Danny swallowed, hardly understanding. Go where? Daddy and Mom and Hawk were supposed to always be there, cuddling on the couch and making dinner and letting Danny and Erin pile into the big bed to read Lord of the Rings. He let Mom lead him to the couch.

“Daddy and Hawkeye,” she began, “had to take a trip to go see Uncle Walt and Aunt Joanie.”

“How come?”

“Aunt Joanie had a baby recently - you know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes, people need a lot of help after they have a baby.”

Danny frowned. “But they have Anna and John and all the other kids. What do they need Dad and Hawkeye for?”

Mom looked at him like she was thinking. She reached out and smoothed his damp hair back into place. “She’s sick, honey,” she finally said. “Sometimes, people get sick after they have a baby.”

Danny fidgeted, his foot swinging over the edge of the couch. “And she needed doctors?”

Mom nodded. “Good doctors. The best doctors.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

Mom reached out and pulled Danny into a tight hug. He almost reached her shoulders now, but she could still make him feel like a little kid when they hugged. “She’s going to be fine,” Mom whispered. “I promise, Danny, she’s going to be okay.”

*

"Ugh," BJ complained as they left the barbershop, "I haven't had my hair this short since boot camp." 

"Ah yes," Hawkeye replied, getting back in the car, "Babyface Beej, all freshly scrubbed and ready for war. Do you have any idea where we are? I'm so hungry I could eat army food."

"Nope," BJ replied, leaning his elbow on the window and sighing. "I can't believe you're thinking about lunch at a time like this." 

Hawkeye put the car in gear and started through the neighborhood again, peering past bungalows and the occasional bodega. "Someone has to. While we're at it, we need to find a place that sells maps."

“We need to get out of town.”

"Let’s head for the hospital around eleven, sneak in through the back, type up our resignation letters on Mae's Smith Corona, leave them for Atticus along with the house keys and last month's rent.”

BJ didn’t even chuckle at the joke. "And then we'll leave?"

"No, then we'll go back to the house and say goodbye to Peg, who will tell us if the O'Reillys are expecting us or not. And -" Hawkeye choked up. "I thought we could say goodbye to the kids." He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. "Oh, hey, look - this will work," he said in a lighter tone, pulling up alongside a luncheonette with a cheery yellow awning with a sign boasting of homemade pies.

*  
The diner placemats had maps of the US on them. BJ and Hawkeye traced the routes they imagined to Iowa - Nevada, Utah, Nebraska. A waitress who was maybe seventeen and just beginning to show a pregnant belly brought them club sandwiches. Hawkeye flirted with her while BJ pretended to be the embarrassed brother. It was an act they'd done so many times it was second nature. For their efforts, the girl brought BJ a slice of apple pie. Hawkeye got banana cream. They downed several cups of coffee each.

They left too much for a tip and continued. With full bellies, the world seemed a little less fatal. They found a shop that sold maps and bought a big road atlas, along with one for Nevada - the shopkeeper didn't stock anything further east. With the remainder of the day, they headed for Golden Gate Park and went over the maps, tracing the route. They could get out of the state before morning if they pushed it, taking turns napping in the passenger seat. Neither of them said it aloud, but they were too scared and worried about money to stop at a motel.

*

Mom stretched her lips into another of those expressions that wasn't a smile. “There’s more, DanDan. We might be going, too.”

“To Iowa?” Danny thought about their two trips out to Uncle Walt’s farm. He liked the goats and some of the O’Reilly kids, Hank especially, but they had to sleep on the floor when they visited, and nothing ever seemed as clean as it was at home. He was always a little relieved to get away from the smell of horses and cows when they left.

"Why?"

"Because they are going to be there for quite some time, and we’ll miss them. But I’m not sure when we’re going. It’s only six weeks until school’s out. We might go then."

“How long are we staying? When would we come home?”

“Oh, soon enough,” Mom said. “But I want you to be ready, because we might leave sooner than that. You’ll have to tell your friends we’re going on a trip to visit Aunt Joanie because she’s sick and needs our help. Do you think you can do that?”

“What if I stayed here, with Mrs. Landingham or Mr. and Mrs. Goldman?” Danny and Erin had stayed with the neighbors a couple of times, when Mom and Dad and Hawkeye went on short trips without them.

Mom shook her head. "Oh honey, there are grown up reasons why you can't.” Danny didn’t want to accept that explanation. He could tell there was more to what was going on than Mom was letting on--she was too upset for it to be otherwise. The thought that Aunt Joanie might be dying settled heavily into his chest, and he felt sorry for the O’Reilly kids.

The door smacked shut a second time. Erin flew into the house, through the living room and into the kitchen, barely noticing either of them were even there. "Is there any fruit or anything? I skipped lunch because it was tuna casserole and the school tuna casserole makes me want to gag."

"Why hello Mother, how was your day? Mine was good except for lunch." Mom tried to make light of Erin's entrance, but the joke fell flat around her voice, which wasn't up to sarcasm. Erin turned around, saw the two of them on the couch and crossed her arms. She spent a minute looking down at the floor before meeting her mom's eyes. "Did one of them die or am I going to have to kill them?"

*

A long trip to a pharmacy in another neighborhood for razors, shaving cream, toothbrushes, soap . They examined the contents of the suitcases Peggy packed three years ago, realized the clothing was too summery, and headed to a department store for a pair of jeans and sweater apiece. Hawkeye wore his out of the store. 

"We'll need rougher clothes," BJ said, lifting a loud Hawaiian shirt out of his suitcase. "None of this is really meant for milking cows."

"Yeah, I wonder where Peg thought we'd be running to - Honolulu?"

They chuckled. "Clothes'll be cheaper once we get out of town," BJ said. "We can stock up on some things that'll fit in better in Iowa."

*

Mom nudged Danny off the couch and pulled him in for a hug. "There's a chocolate cake in the fridge," she whispered, smoothing his hair down. "If a piece of it disappears before dessert, I promise not to say anything. Give me a minute with your sister."

Danny headed for the kitchen, thinking about Iowa, and whether the kids there would be as rough and loud as the ones at school. Would he have to pretend to like baseball there, too?

*  
The wind whipped through BJ’s hair, flipping it up and revealing a hairline more receded than he liked to admit. He hunched over the pad of paper on his knee, trying to get past “Dear Dr. Norwich,” in his resignation letter.

__

Dear Dr. Norwich,

I am offering my resignation effective immediately…

What to say?

__

I am offering my resignation effective immediately due to a crisis in the family that requires my full attention out of state.

Vague enough?

He scrubbed at his head, a gesture he realized he’d picked up from Hawkeye. “I don’t know how to do this, Hawk.”

Hawkeye looked up from his own paper. “You don’t? How on earth did you finish college without learning how to bullshit?”  
“Can I hear what you’ve got?”

“Dear Dr. Norwich. I am offering my resignation effective immediately. Additionally, though it’s none of your business, I have zero regrets about the compromising position in which I was found, aside from the discovery of said compromise and the unfortunate prejudices of those who did the finding.”

“Hawkeye.”

“So it’s a first draft.”

“We do need to be able to get other jobs somewhere.”

“Oh, Atticus won’t screw us over. He knows he’d go down with the ship. He knew us socially, for fuck’s sake. People will wonder if he knew, or when he knew, or why he didn’t do anything about it. No. He wouldn’t risk the hospital’s reputation to ruin ours.”

“He could still write less than glowing recommendations.”

“We don’t need them, Beej. We’re decorated war heroes, remember? Well, some of us have decorations. The rest of us are, you know, undecorated. Like a kosher deli at Christmas.”

“I think I’ll keep mine a little plainer all the same.”

“Okay, okay. Here: ‘Dear Dr. Norwich, Due to a family crisis which will require me to be out of state for an undefined period of time, I am offering my resignation, effective immediately.’ Does that work for you?”

“Is that all it has to be?”

“You’ve really never left a job before, have you.”

“Not unless you count the army’s intervention at the end of my residency.”

*

  


Erin took Danny’s seat on the couch and looked her mother over, concern and nervousness replacing the self-absorbed exasperation she’d felt on her way in. “You’re scaring me,” she said. “Come on, Mom. What happened?”

“There was a situation at the hospital. With Dad and Hawk.”

“What did they do, kill somebody?” 

“I almost wish they had.” 

Erin nearly flinched. Her mother - nobody’s mother - was supposed to make jokes that dark. What the hell.

“No, Er,” she continued. “Somebody at the hospital thought they saw Dad and Hawkeye doing something...inappropriate. The kind of thing that makes rumors fly. And ruins careers.”  
“What, you mean like dancing around the living room and arguing about who’s supposed to be the girl?”

Her mother chuckled. “No, I’m afraid it wasn’t that sweet or that silly. The person who saw them is willing to make a lot of trouble, and neither of them felt they could risk it. So they both quit their jobs, and they’re headed for Ottumwa. They’ll be able to lie low there for awhile, and Joan needs the help. The last birth was rough on her.”

Erin nodded grimly. “Dad told me about that part. Okay, so how long will they be gone? And when are they coming back? And what happens after that?”

“I wish I knew, honey.” 

“I mean, just a guess, Mom. Weeks? A month? Two months?” She watched her mother’s face for a sign she was getting close.

“I can’t guess at that, Erin. I just can’t. But we do have a decision to make.”

“What’s that?”

“When we go join them. I’m debating whether or not to leave now, or wait until school gets out.”

“Mom, it’s my junior year. I can’t just drop all my classes and leave six weeks before the end of the term. What am I going to do?” What about prom? She shouldn’t be thinking about it, it was selfish and shallow, but she was.

“That’s why you and I are talking about this.” Her mother reached between them and took one of Erin’s hands in hers. “You’re a bright girl with a good head on her shoulders,” she said. “I’m still your mother, and I’m still in charge, but if we think this through together, we may come up with the right solution.” 

“What if I stayed with some friends, just until the end of the year. if you think you need to go right away.”

“That might work. You’d have to be able to lie to them about why we’re gone. That would be a lot to put on your shoulders.”

“I could say it was Grandpa. That you all had to go to Oklahoma.”

“That might work.”

“I guess...I guess it’s good I’m not attached right now.” It hadn’t been that long, though, since she’d broken up with Bobby. Good riddance to bad rubbish, really, but it hadn’t felt that way when she’d curled up on the couch with Mom to bury her sorrows in a shared quart of strawberry ice cream and round after round of “It’s My Party And I’ll Cry if I Want To.”

“Okay. That’s enough thinking for right now. We’re not going to decide tonight. You don’t have to go to school tomorrow. We’ll probably send Danny, just to keep things normal for him…”

“Mom. I have a trig test tomorrow. I’m going to school.” She’d found missing even a day of math left her feeling a week behind. 

Her mother nodded. “You’ll go to school, then. And we’ll see what happens after that.”


End file.
